iLounge

iOS is known for its smooth scrolling, but sometimes all that swiping can be an annoyance when all you really want to is get back to the top of the screen—to access the address bar in Safari, for instance. It appears that Apple planned for this, as iOS has had a simple shortcut built-in since the days of the first iPhone that does precisely that. In nearly any app, you can tap the status bar—where the time lives—to instantly jump back to the top of a list or page, letting you get get where you need to go—no more wasted swipes.

The iPad’s built-in Picture Frame is one of its coolest (sorta) hidden features—but did you know that you don’t have to settle for its default settings? Open the Settings app, and right below Brightness & Wallpaper you’ll see the selection for Picture Frame. On this screen, you can choose between two transitions—Dissolve and Origami—set the time that each photo is on the screen, choose whether or not to zoom in on faces—set to on by default when using Dissolve, and unavailable on Origami—choose whether to show the photos in order or shuffle them, and choose whether to display all your photos or just a subset. With all those options, you should find ways to make this long-standing feature feel fresh and new.

While no one is likely to use it for critical music listening, the iPad’s built-in speaker is perfectly serviceable for watching video. But you might sometimes find yourself in need of just a little more volume than it can provide—for those occasions, there’s a cheap solution: passive amplification. Since the iPad 2 and third-gen iPad speakers point backwards rather than forwards, you can increase their volume by redirecting their sound waves. Simply cut an iPad corner-sized hole in the closed end of a cup, insert the iPad with the speaker aiming towards the rear of the cup, and voila—your iPad should sound noticeably louder, if not necessarily better. Make sure you cut the hole in a place that will let your iPad stand upright, and at a size that captures as much of the audio as possible from the rear speaker for redirection. [via Reddit | Lifehacker]

Find yourself frequently changing the From address when composing a new email in Mail? Perhaps it’s time to change your default Mail address. To do so, open the Settings app, tap on Mail, Contacts, Calendars, scroll down, and tap on Default Account. From the screen that appears, you can select your most oft-used account from every account on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, shaving one step off your new email routine.

With iOS devices becoming ever more capable of creating and downloading content and apps, managing your device’s storage has become increasingly important. If you find yourself running out of room on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, there’s a simple way to see what apps are using the most storage. Open the Settings app, tap on General, then tap on Usage. At the top of the screen under the Storage header, you’ll see a list of your installed apps, sorted by the amount of storage used, with an option to show all apps at the bottom. Using this list, you can discover which apps are the most storage hungry, and simply tap on any app to see more details, along with a button to delete the app, letting you delete only those apps that are adversely affecting your storage and leave the rest on your device.

No matter how hard you try, sometimes you just aren’t able to make the first available train offered to you by the Maps application’s transit schedule. Luckily, there’s a simple way to adjust the times to allow for a certain departure or arrival time. Once you’ve done your route search and settled on one you’re happy with, tap the clock icon to see the available options, then tap on Depart to bring up a page that will allow you to adjust your departure or arrival time to better fit your schedule. Just note that it’s not a time machine, so setting the Arrive By time to two hours ago won’t get you there on time. [via CoM | UK Cnet]

You know that rumor that cropped up right before the release of the third-generation iPad, about it not having a Home button? It wasn’t as silly as it sounded, thanks to Multitasking Gestures, a hidden iPad/iOS 5 feature that you can take advantage of right now. Simply open the Settings app, tap on General, and turn on the slider for Multitasking Gestures. Once it’s on, you’ll be able to use four or five fingers to pinch your way back to the Home screen, swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar, and swipe left and right between apps—no buttons required.

Ever in a hurry and enter one too many numbers into the Calculator app for iOS? Instead of clearing the whole number out, use this tip to quickly get rid of the extra digit. Simply swipe your finger across the number display and the app will clear out only the rightmost digit, allowing you to continue on with your calculations without needing to reenter a thing. [via Cult of Mac]

Got a third-generation iPad? Well, the handful of apps that have been updated for the device’s gargantuan 2048 x 1536 display aren’t the only apps that can get in on the Retina iPad fun. If you have any Retina-ready iPhone and iPod touch apps installed, the new iPad allows those to appear in all their glory — something that’s supported on no other iPad thus far. It’s even noticeable when running the apps in 2x mode, making those few small-screen apps you can’t live without that much more enjoyable.

So you didn’t get your pre-order placed in time, or just now decided to purchase the new third-gen iPad/iPhone 5/insert future Apple product here. Guess what? You’ve just sentenced yourself to hours of waiting outside a retail store for your chance to own one—but don’t despair. Using these simple tips, your time standing in line will at least be a little more tolerable, if not downright fun.

Have an iTunes library full of uncompressed audio? Then you’re probably familiar with iTunes’ built-in option to automatically convert higher bit rate songs to a lower bit rate—and thus smaller file size—when filling up an iDevice. Previously, this option was not so audiophile friendly, due to its 128 kbps restriction, but with iTunes 10.6, you have some freedom to lower the file size of AIFF and Apple Lossless files while maintaining better sound quality. On the Summary page for your device, check down in the Options box, make sure you have the Convert higher bit rate songs box checked, and then take your pick from 128, 192, or 256 kbps, and enjoy the extra space on your device while also enjoying your music.

Among a handful of other new features and improvements, iOS 5.1 lets users of the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and fourth-generation iPod touch access the camera even more quickly than what was possible under its 5.0 predecessor. To do so, simply press any button to bring up the device’s lock screen, then place your finger over the camera icon and slide up—as you do so, the traditional camera interface will appear underneath, giving you near-instant access for more timely shots.

The iPhone’s lack of Emoji characters used to be a sore spot for some, with complex workarounds required to enable access on Western devices. Now, with iOS 5, accessing your iOS device’s built-in Emoji keyboard is a simple as can be. To do so, open the Settings app, tap on General, tap on Keyboard, and tap on International Keyboards. On the next screen, tap on Add New Keyboard and select Emoji from the list. Once that’s done, you’ll be able to access the full library of Emoji icons from the standard keyboard by tapping the globe icon.

The build quality of Apple’s iOS devices is generally commendable, but we’ve encountered more than a few users who’ve had their Home button stop working, in some cases long before they were due for a cheap upgrade on their subsidized device. With the new Accessibility features in iOS 5 came an on-screen workaround for this problem, less than optimal though it may be.

To enable the workaround, open the Settings app, tap on General, tap on Accessibility, scroll down, and tap on AssistiveTouch. Turning this feature on will bring up a small button with concentric circles that when tapped will bring up an on-screen menu offering the software equivalent of the home button, as well as options for quickly accessing Device controls like volume, mute, screen lock, and rotation, Gesture controls, and saved Favorite gestures.

The button is located in the lower right hand corner by default, but can be dragged around the screen’s edge to any position you choose. Like we said, it’s sub-optimal, but if you’re dealing with a wonky Home button, it sure beats dealing with the frustration of not having your device work consistently. [via AppHipMom]

We’ll be the first to admit that we don’t normally answer calls from Blocked numbers, but there are situations in which you’d rather not have your number displayed to the person on the other end. Luckily for iPhone users, there’s a dead simple way to stop this from happening. Step 1: Open the Settings app. Step 2: Tap on Phone. Step 3: Tap on Show My Caller ID. Step 4: Toggle the slider to Off. Step 5: There is no Step 5. See, we told you it was simple.

Should you be composing an email and need to reference a different email to complete your correspondence, the process for getting back to your draft—after you hit Save Draft, of course—is inconvenient at best. Unless, of course, you use this handy tip. Once you’re ready to return to your draft, simply tap and hold the Compose button, and Mail will automatically bring up your most recent saved draft, so you can continue writing without needing to dig through multiple folders. [via Obama Pacman]

While the arrival of tabbed browsing on the iPad was a boon to any user prone to opening more than one site at once, it brought with it the potential for accidentally closed tabs. Luckily, Apple built-in an easy way to reopen those tabs without needing to dig through the browser history. To reopen a tab, simply tap and hold on the new tab button, and a menu will appear listing your recently closed tabs, meaning that slideshow you accidentally nixed is little more than a tap or two away.

iOS 5 brought with it a number of new features and improvements for iPad users, and one of the more curious among them was the ability to split the device’s software keyboard in two, allowing users to use both thumbs to type, as they do on iPhones or iPod touches. But did you know that this special keyboard also features unseen, hidden keys that can help you out if you’re used to hitting certain keys with certain thumbs? Indeed, tapping to the immediate right of the T, G, or V keys produces a Y, H, or B, respectively, and tapping to the immediate left of the Y, H, or B keys on the other side produces its corresponding letter from the other side of the gap. It’s not life-altering, but if you’re used to typing your mobile Gs with your right thumb, it’s pretty darn handy. [via Finer Things | CoM]

The ability to re-download apps you’ve bought in the past is great, but if you’re anything like us, you’ve downloaded plenty of apps that you don’t actually use. Luckily, Apple has built in a super-simple way to hide those purchases, so they aren’t cluttering up your Purchased list. To do this from an iOS device, simply find an app you’d lie to hide and swipe across it, and you’ll see the iCloud download button replaced with a red Hide button, which you can tap to hide the app. To unhide purchases, visit the account management pane of the App Store, and tap on Hidden Purchases. You can also achieve this trick from iTunes on the PC or Mac by visiting your Purchased apps and hovering over the icon of any app you’d like to hide until a small x button appears in the corner; you can likewise unhide purchases by visiting your account settings page.

Freeing up extra space in your iTunes Library—and thus on your hard drive—has long been a part of dealing with Apple’s media management software, but with the arrival of iTunes in the Cloud, it’s become easier than ever. If you have a few HD TV shows that you’ve downloaded from the iTunes Store, odds are you also have SD versions of those same videos hanging around. Assuming your portable devices support the HD version—and all current models do—you can easily get rid of the SD version, freeing up large amounts of storage space in the meantime.

To do so, simply open up your TV Shows list in iTunes and look for episodes that have the HD/SD icon next to the title. Right-click on these episodes, select Show in Finder from the pop-up menu, and then drag the version of the episode that doesn’t contain an (HD) designation to the trash. Repeat these steps for each episode that has two versions, then empty the trash. Should you ever need the SD version again, a quick visit to the iTunes Store’s Purchased section should allow you to re-download it. Unfortunately, Movies have yet to hit iTunes in the Cloud status, but as soon as they do, feel free to use the same technique to rid your Library of unnecessary SD movies — and free up gigabytes of space at the same time.