Managing Calendars, Reminders, and Clocks - My iPhone for Seniors, Second Edition (2016)

My iPhone for Seniors, Second Edition (2016)

11. Managing Calendars, Reminders, and Clocks

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In this chapter, you explore all the calendar, time, date, and reminder functionality your iPhone has to offer. Topics include the following:

Image Getting started

Image Setting calendar, reminder, date, and time preferences

Image Working with calendars

Image Working with reminders

Image Working with the clock

When it comes to time, your iPhone is definitely your friend. Using the iPhone’s Calendar app, you can view calendars that have been synchronized among all your devices, such as computers and iPads, using an online account, such as iCloud or Google. You can also make changes to your calendars on your iPhone and they sync with your other devices so you have consistent information no matter which device you happen to be using at any time. The Reminders app ensures you don’t forget tasks or anything else you want to remember. You can use the Clock app to set alarms, use as a stopwatch, and as a timer.

Getting Started

This chapter includes three different apps, because they are all related to managing your time.

The Calendar app does what it sounds like: it allows you to manage one or more calendars. This app has lots of features designed to help you work with multiple calendars and accounts, manage events that other people are invited to, and more. You don’t have to use all these features, and you might just want to use its basic functionality, such as to record doctor appointments, dinner reservations, and similar events for which it is important to know the time and date (and be reminded when those times and dates are approaching).

The Reminders app can remind you about things you need to do at a specific time or it can be used to capture lists that don’t have any specific time, such as things you need to buy the next time you go to a specific store.

The Clock app provides lots of very useful time functions, including an alarm, timer, and stopwatch.

Setting Calendar, Reminder, Date, and Time Preferences

There are a number of calendar, reminder, date, and time options you can configure using the Settings app. Following is an example showing how to determine how many months of events are available in the Calendar app on your iPhone. You can configure other calendar, reminder, date, and time settings using similar steps and the descriptions of the settings in the table that follows these steps.

To configure how far back in time calendars on your iPhone go, perform the following steps:

Image Tap Settings on the Home screen.

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Image Swipe up the screen.

Image Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars.

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Image Swipe up the screen until you see the CALENDARS section.

Image Tap Sync.

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Image Tap the amount of time you would like to see on your calendars. For example, to show events as far back as three months, tap Events 3 Months Back.

Image Tap Mail. The Calendar app shows events as far back in time as you selected in step 6. You can change the other calendar, time, date, and reminder settings using a similar pattern and the description of the options in the following table.

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Calendar, Reminder, and Time Settings

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Notifications

The Calendar and Reminders apps can communicate with you in various ways, such as displaying alerts or banners when something happens that you might want to know about; for example, you can be alerted with a banner when you receive an invitation to an event. Configuring notifications for these apps will make them even more valuable. The information you need to configure notifications is explained in the section called “Setting Up Notifications and the Notification Center” in Chapter 5, “Customizing How Your iPhone Looks and Sounds.”


Working with Calendars

The Calendar app helps you manage your calendars; you’ll notice I wrote calendars rather than calendar. That’s because you can have multiple calendars in the app at the same time. To use the most cliché example, you might have a calendar for work and one for your personal life. Or, you might want a calendar for your travel plans, and then share that calendar with people who care about your location.

In most cases, you start by adding existing calendar information from an iCloud, Google, or similar account. From there, you can use the Calendar app to view your calendars, add or change events, and much more. Any changes you make in the Calendar app are automatically made in all the locations that use calendars from the same account.

The best option for storing your calendar information is an online account (such as iCloud or Google) because you can easily access your calendar information from many devices, and your calendars are kept in sync automatically. To learn how to configure an online account for calendar information, refer to Chapter 3, “Setting Up and Using iCloud and Other Online Accounts.”

Viewing Calendars and Events

You use the Calendar app to view and work with your calendars, and you can choose how you view them, such as by month, week, or day.

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To get into your calendars, move to the Home screen and tap the Calendar app (which shows the current day and date in its icon and a badge, if you have at least one new invitation). The most recent screen you were viewing appears.

There are three viewing modes you use in the app. The mode in which you’ll spend most of your time is the one that displays your calendars in various views, such as showing a month, week, or day. Another mode is the Calendars tool that enables you to choose and edit the calendar information that is displayed. The third mode is your Inbox, which you use to work with event invitations you receive.

Configuring Calendars

To configure the calendar information you see in the app, perform the following steps:

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Image If you only have one calendar, skip to step 2. Tap Calendars to see all of your synced calendars. If you don’t see this at the bottom of the screen, you are already on the Calendars screen (look for “Calendars” at the top of the screen).

The Calendars screen displays the calendars available, organized by the account from which they come, such as ICLOUD or GMAIL. By default, all your calendars are displayed, which is indicated by the check marks next to the calendars’ names. Any calendars that don’t have a check mark next to their names are not displayed when you view your calendar.

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Image Tap a calendar with a check mark to hide it. The check mark disappears and the calendar is hidden. (The calendar is still there, you just won’t see it when you are viewing your calendars.)

Image To show a calendar again, tap its name. It is marked with a check mark and appears when you are viewing calendars.

Image Tap the Info button to see or change a calendar’s information settings. Not all types of calendars support this function, and those that do can offer different settings. The following steps show an iCloud calendar; if you are working with a calendar of a different type, such as an Exchange calendar, you might not have all or the same options as those shown here. In any case, the steps to make changes are similar across all available types of calendars.

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Image Change the name of the calendar by tapping it and then making changes on the keyboard; when you’re done making changes, swipe down the screen to close the keyboard.

Image To share the calendar with someone, tap Add Person, enter the email address of the person with whom you are sharing it, and tap Add. (Sharing calendars is explained in more detail later in this chapter.)

Image If the calendar is shared and you don’t want to be notified when shared events are changed, added, or deleted, set the Show Changes switch to off (white). When this switch is enabled and a change is made to a shared calendar, you receive notifications about the changes that were made. If the calendar is not shared, you won’t see this switch.

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Image Swipe up the screen.

Image Tap the color you want events on the calendar to appear in.

Image If you want alerts to be enabled (active) for the calendar, set the Event Alerts switch to on (green). (Not all types of calendars support this setting.)

Image To make the calendar public so that others can subscribe to a read-only version of it, set the Public Calendar switch to on (green), tap Share Link, and then use the resulting Share tools to invite others to subscribe to the calendar (more on this later in this chapter).

Image To remove the calendar entirely (instead of hiding it from view), tap Delete Calendar and then tap Delete Calendar at the prompt. The calendar and all its events are deleted. (It’s usually better just to hide a calendar as described in step 2 so you don’t lose its information.)

Image Assuming that you didn’t delete the calendar, tap Done.

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Image Edit other calendars as needed.

Image Tap Done. The app moves into viewing mode, and the calendars you enabled are displayed.


>>>Go Further: All or Nothing

You can make all your calendars visible by tapping the Show All Calendars button at the top of the screen; tap Hide All Calendars to do the opposite. After all the calendars are shown or hidden, you can tap individual calendars to show or hide them. You can show all the calendars from the same account by tapping the All command at the top of each account’s calendar list, such as All iCloud to show all your iCloud calendars. Tap this again to hide all the account’s calendars.


Navigating Calendars

The Calendar app uses a hierarchy of detail to display your calendars. The lowest level of detail, but longest timeframe displayed, is the year view. Next is the month view, which shows more detail but covers a shorter timeframe. This is followed by the week/day view; showing the highest level of detail is the event view.

Viewing Calendars

You can view your calendars from the year level all the way down to the day/week view. It’s easy to move among the levels to get to the time period you want to see. Here’s how:

Image Starting at the year view, swipe up and down until you see the year in which you are interested. (If you aren’t in the year view, keep tapping the back button located in the upper-left corner of the screen until the back button disappears.)

Image Tap the month in which you are interested. The days in that month display, and days with events are marked with a dot.

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Image Swipe up and down the screen to view different months.

Image To see the detail for a date, tap it. There are two ways to view the daily details: the Calendar view or the List view. Steps 5 through 8 show the Calendar view, while steps 9 though 11 show the List view. Each of these views has benefits and as you can see, it is easy to switch between them.

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Today Is the Day

To quickly move to the current day, tap Today, located at the bottom of the screen.


Image To see the Calendar view, ensure the List button is not selected (isn’t highlighted). On the resulting screen are the days of the week you are viewing. The date in focus is highlighted with a red circle for when that day is today and a black circle for any other day. Below this area is the detail for the selected day showing the events on that day.

Image Swipe to the left or right on the dates or date being displayed to change the date for which detailed information is being shown.

Image Swipe up or down on the date detail to browse all its events.

Image Tap an event to view its detail and skip to step 12.

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Image To see the events in List view, tap the List button so it is highlighted.

Image Swipe up and down to see the events for each day.

Image Tap on an event to view its detail.

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Image Swipe up and down the screen to see all of the event’s information.

Image Read information about the event.

Image Tap the Calendar or Alert fields to change these settings.

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Image Tap attachments to view them.

Image Tap any links to move to information related to the event.

Image Read notes associated with the event.

Image See the event’s location on a map.

Image Tap the date to move back to the week/day view.

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Red Line

The red line stretching horizontally across the screen indicates the current time, which is shown at the left end of that line.


Image Tap the back button (labeled with the month you are viewing) to move back to the month view.

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Image To view your calendars in the multiday view, rotate your iPhone so it is horizontal. You can do this while in the week/day view or the month view.

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Image Swipe left or right to change the dates being displayed.

Image Swipe up or down to change the time of day being displayed.

Image Tap an event to see its detail.

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Using 3D Touch for Events (iPhone 6s and 6s Plus Only)

New! You can use the 3D Touch feature on an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus with the Calendar app as follows:

Image Browse events, such as when you use the List view.

Image Tap and hold on an event in which you are interested. A Peek of that event appears.

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Image Review the preview of the event that appears in the Peek.

Image To open the event so you can see all of its detail, press down slightly harder until it pops open and use the steps in the earlier task to work with it (skip the rest of these steps).

Image To see actions you can perform on the event, swipe up on the Peek.

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Image Tap the action you want to perform, such as Delete Event, to delete the event from your calendar.

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Adding Events to a Calendar

There are a number of ways you can add events to your calendar. You can create an event in an app on a computer, website, or other device and sync that event onto the iPhone through an online account. You can also manually create events in the Calendar app on the iPhone. Your events can include a lot of detail; you can choose to just create the basic information on your iPhone while you are on the move and complete it later from a computer or other device, or you can fill in all the details directly in the Calendar app.

Image Tap the Add button, which appears in the upper-right corner of any of the views when your phone is vertical (except when you are viewing an event’s details). The initial date information is taken from the date currently being displayed, so you can save a little time if you view the date of the event before tapping the Add button.

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Image Tap in the Title field and type the title of the event.

Image Tap the Location bar and type the location of the event; if you allowed the app to use Location Services, you’re prompted to find and select a location; if not, just type the location and skip to step 6.

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Location Prompt

The first time you create an event, you might be prompted to allow the Calendar app to access your location information. When you allow the app to use Location Services, you can search for and select event locations. The app can use this information to include an estimate of travel time for the event and to display events on a map when you view their detail.


Image Type the location in the Search bar. Sites that meet your search are shown below.

Image Tap the location for the event.

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Image To set the event to last all day, set the All-day switch to the on position (green); when you select the All-day option, you provide only the start and end dates (you don’t input times). To set a specific start and end time, leave this in the off (white) position; you’ll set both the dates and times as described in the following steps.

Image To set a timeframe for the event, tap Starts. The date and time tool appears.

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Your Results May Vary

The fields and options available when you create a new event are based on the calendar with which the event is associated. For example, an iCloud calendar offers different options than a Google calendar does. If you aren’t creating an event on your default calendar, it’s a good idea to associate the event with a calendar before you fill in its details (to do that, perform step 31 before you do step 2).


Image Swipe up or down on the date wheel until the date on which the event starts appears in the center.

Image Swipe up or down on the hour wheel until the event’s starting hour is shown.

Image Scroll and select the starting minute in the same way.

Image Swipe up or down on the hour wheel to select AM or PM.

Image If you want to associate the event with a specific time zone, tap Time Zone; if not, don’t tap it and skip to step 14.

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Image Search for and select the time zone with which the event should be associated.

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No Changes?

When you change a selection on most of the screens you see, you automatically return to the previous screen. If you don’t make a change, you can return to the previous screen by tapping the back button that always appears in the upper-left corner of the screen (it can have different labels depending on the context of the current screen).


Image Tap Ends.

Image Use the date and time tool to set the ending date and time (if applicable) for the event; these work the same way as for the start date and time.

Image Tap Ends. The date and time tool closes.

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Image To make the event repeat, tap Repeat and follow steps 18–23. (For a nonrepeating event, skip to step 24.)

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Image Tap the frequency with which you want the event repeated, such as Every Day, Every Week, and so on; if you want to use a repeat cycle not shown, tap Custom and create the frequency with which you want the event to repeat.

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Image Tap End Repeat to set a time at which the event stops repeating.

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Custom Repeat

To configure a custom repeat cycle for an event, such as the first Monday of every month, tap Custom on the Repeat screen. Then use the Frequency (Monthly for the example) and Every (for example, On the first Monday) settings to configure the repeat cycle. Tap Repeat to return to the Repeat screen, and then New Event to get back to the event you are creating.


Image To have the event always repeat, tap Never and skip to step 23.

Image To set an end to the repetition, tap On Date.

Image Use the date tool to set the date for the last repeated event.

Image Tap New Event.

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Image To configure travel time for the event, tap Travel Time; if you don’t want to configure this, skip to step 31.

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Image Set the Travel Time switch to on (green).

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Image To manually add a travel time to the event, tap it and skip to step 30.

Image To build a travel time based on a starting location, tap Starting Location.

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No Change Needed

If you don’t make a change to one of the settings, such as on the Repeat screen, you need to tap the New Event link to get back to the New Event screen.


Image To use your current location as the starting point, tap Current Location. Alternatively, use the Search tool to find a starting location, and then tap it to select that location.

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Image Tap the method you will use to travel to the location.

Image Tap New Event.

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Image To change the calendar with which the event is associated, tap Calendar (to leave the current calendar selected, skip to step 33).

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Image Tap the calendar with which the event should be associated.

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Image To invite others to the event, tap Invitees; if you don’t want to invite someone else, skip to step 38.

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Image Enter the email addresses for each person you want to invite; as you type, the app tries to identify people who match what you are typing. You can tap a person to add him to the event. You can also use the Add button to choose people from your Contacts.

Image Repeat step 34 until you’ve added everyone you want to invite.

Image Tap Done. You move to the Invitees screen and see those whom you invited.

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Image Tap New Event.

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Image To set an alert for the event that is different than the default, tap Alert; if you want to use the default alert, skip to step 40.

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Image Tap when you want to see an alert for the event.

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Image To set a second alert that is different than the default, tap Second Alert; to use the default, skip to step 42.

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Image Tap when you want to see a second alert for the event. If you have included travel time in the event, the At start of travel time option is useful because it alerts you when your journey should begin.

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Image To indicate your availability during this event, tap Show As.

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Image Tap the availability status you want to indicate during the event.

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Image To enter a URL associated with the event, tap in the URL field.

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Image Type the URL.

Image Tap Done.

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Image Tap Notes and type information you want to associate with the event.

Image Tap Add. The event is added to the calendar you selected, and invitations are sent to its invitees. Alerts trigger according to the event’s settings.

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A Better Way to Create Events

Adding a lot of detail to an event in the Calendar app can be challenging. One effective and easy way to create events is to start with Siri. You can activate Siri and say something like “Create meeting with William Wallace in my office on November 15 at 10 AM.” Siri creates the event with as much detail as you provided (and might prompt you to provide additional information, such as which email address to use to send invitations). When you get to a computer or iPad, edit the event to add more information, such as website links. When your calendar is updated on the iPhone, via syncing, the additional detail for the event appears in the Calendar app, too. (See Chapter 12, “Working with Siri,” for detailed information about using Siri.)


Using Quick Actions with the Calendar App (iPhone 6s and 6s Plus Only)

You can use the Quick Actions feature on an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus with the Calendar app as follows:

Image Press on the Calendar icon. The Quick Actions menu appears.

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Image To add a new event, choose Add Event and use the steps in the previous task to create the event.

Image To view an event, choose the event you want to see. You move to the event and can see all of its information.

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Searching Calendars

You can search for events to locate specific ones quickly and easily. Here’s how:

Image Tap the Search tool. A list of all your events displays.

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Image Tap in the Search box.

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Image Type your search term. The events shown below the Search bar are those that contain your search term.

Image Swipe up or down the list to review the results.

Image Tap an event to see its detail.

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Image Swipe up or down the event’s screen to review its information.

Image Tap Back to return to the results.

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Image Continue reviewing the results until you get the information for which you were searching.

Image Tap Cancel to exit the search mode or the Clear button (x) to clear the search but remain in search mode.

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Managing Calendars and Events

Following are some more points about the Calendar app you might find helpful:

• You can also use the List view when you are viewing the calendar in month view. Tap the List button (just to the left of the Search button). The list opens at the bottom of the screen and shows the events on the day currently selected (indicated in the black circle unless the day selected is today in which case the circle is red).

• You can see today’s events at any time by swiping down from the top of the screen to open the Notification Center. On the Today tab is a summary of your events for the day; your next event is shown just under the date at the top of the screen. Swipe up and down on the Calendar section to see the entire day’s events.

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• When an event’s alarm goes off, an onscreen notification appears (according to the notification settings for the Calendar app) and the calendar event sound you’ve selected plays. When an alert notification appears, the event’s title, location (if one is set), and time appear. You have to take some action. You can tap Close to dismiss the alert or tap Options to see additional choices. On the Options dialog box, tap Snooze to snooze the alarm, View Event to see its details, or Close to dismiss the alarm. When a banner notification appears, you see the event’s name and location. You can tap the event to view its details or ignore it and it moves off the screen after a few moments. You can also swipe up from the bottom of the notification to manually close it.

• Siri is useful for working with calendars, especially for creating events. See Chapter 12 for detailed information about using Siri.

Working with Reminders

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The Reminders app does just what it sounds like it does, which is to remind you about things. The things it reminds you about are up to you; these might be to-do items/tasks, thoughts you want to be reminded to follow up on later, or anything else you can think of. Reminders are also useful for lists of things you need to get or want to remember to think about later. Just as you can have multiple calendars to manage your events, you can have multiple lists for your reminders.

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Open the Reminders app by tapping its icon on the Home screen. Tap the list you want to view. If a list is already open, swipe down the screen to view the area showing all the reminder lists.

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You can see how easily you can move between the list of reminder lists and a specific reminder list. There are a couple of other views you can use, too (as you learn in a bit), but you’ll likely spend most of your time on these two.

Creating Reminders

You can manually create reminders by performing the following steps:

Image Tap the Reminders icon on the Home screen.

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Image If you see a reminder list instead of the list of reminder lists, skip this step. If you see the list of your reminder lists, tap the list on which you want to create a new reminder.

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Image Tap in an open reminder space that contains the +. The keyboard appears.

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Image Type the reminder.

Image To create more reminders, tap the return button on the keyboard.

Image Create the next reminder.

Image Repeat steps 5 and 6 until you’ve created all the reminders you want.

Image Tap Done. You can stop here if you only want basic information in the reminder, which is just the reminder’s text (the app won’t actually remind you unless you configure the reminder for a specific date and time). Continue these steps to fully configure a reminder.

Image Tap the reminder you want to configure for an alert.

Image Tap the Info button.

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Image Slide the Remind me on a day switch to on (green) to set a specific date and time on which you want to be reminded; if you don’t want the reminder to be time based, skip to step 16 instead.

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Image Tap Alarm to open the date and time tool.

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Image Use the date and time tool to set a time for the reminder; these work by scrolling to the desired day and time, just like when you create an event (see “Adding Events to a Calendar,” earlier in this chapter).

Image To have the reminder repeated, tap Repeat, and on the resulting screen tap the repeat interval. This also works just like it does when you create an event.

Image If you configured the reminder to repeat, tap End Repeat (this appears only when you have set a reminder to repeat). Use the tools on the End Repeat screen to set the end of the repeating event, and tap Done (this works just like setting the Repeat).

Image Slide the Remind me at a location switch to on (green) to set the reminder to be activated based on you leaving or arriving at a location; if you don’t want to set this, skip to step 20.

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Image Tap Location.

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Location Services Required

If you haven’t enabled Location Services on your iPhone, and for the Reminders app specifically, you’re prompted to do so the first time you enable the Remind me at a location feature. You only have to do this the first time or after you disable the required Location Services.


Image Tap Current Location, tap one of the addresses that appear on the list, or enter an address to associate the reminder with one of those locations, and then select it on the list.

Image Tap When I Arrive to be reminded when you arrive at the location you selected, or tap When I Leave to be reminded when you leave the location you selected.

Image Drag the circle to be larger or smaller to change the distance from the location at which the reminder is triggered. As you drag, the distance appears.

Image Tap Details.

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Location and Time Interactions

If you set both a date/time reminder and a location reminder, you’re reminded at the earliest event, such as the time passing or the change in location you set.


Image Tap the priority you want to associate with the reminder.

Image Tap List.

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Image Tap the list on which you want to store the reminder (reminder lists are organized by the accounts from which they come).

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It’s Not All Good: It Turns Out that Priorities Really Don’t Matter

Note that the priority rating is just a visual indication of the reminder’s importance. Currently, there are no automatic actions that happen based on priority, such as the reminder list for a given day being sorted by priority by default or getting automatic alerts for high priority items. Hopefully, the priority setting will become more useful in future versions of the iOS software.


Image Tap Notes.

Image Type notes you want to associate with the reminder.

Image Tap Done. The reminder is complete and you return to the reminder list, where you see the reminder you created including the alert time and location and notes.

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The Ultimate Assistant

Siri can handle reminders really well. Activate Siri and say something like “Remind me to take batteries to the field at 10 A.M. today.” Siri creates the reminder for you. You can move to it in the Reminders app to add more detail if you want, but using Siri makes creating reminders really fast and easy. See Chapter 12 for more on Siri.


Organizing Reminders with Lists

You can keep multiple lists of reminders for different purposes. Following are some tips to help you with your lists:

• The title of the current list is shown at the top of the list screen.

• To move between your lists, swipe down on the list title at the top of the screen. The list of your lists appears. Tap the list you want to view; the list and the reminders it contains appear.

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• To create a new list, tap the Add button (+), and then tap List at the prompt. Type the new list’s name. Tap the color you want to associate with the list, and then tap Done. You can then assign reminders to the new list.

• To change a list, move to its screen and tap Edit. Change the list’s name and tap color to change the list’s color. Tap Done to save your changes.

• You can share reminder lists just like sharing calendars. Tap Edit while viewing a list, and then tap Sharing. Tap Add person, configure the people with whom you want to share the list, and then tap Add. Tap Done. After the people you invite accept the invitation, they see the list in the Reminders app on their device.

• If you enable Family Sharing, a list called “Family” is created automatically and shared with everyone on your Family Sharing list. Family Sharing is covered in “Using Family Share to Share your iTunes Store Content,” in Chapter 6, “Downloading Apps, Music, Movies, TV Shows, and More onto Your iPhone.”

• To delete a list, tap Edit while viewing that list. Tap Delete List and confirm this is what you want to do at the prompt. The list and all the reminders it contains are deleted.

Managing Reminders

When you have reminders set up, you can manage them using some of the tips in the following list:

• When a reminder’s Remind Me time or location event occurs, you see an alert according to the notification setting for the Reminders app. If it is a banner, you can tap it to view the reminder’s details or ignore it. If it is an alert, you must dismiss it or view the reminder’s details.

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• To mark a reminder as complete, tap its radio button. The next time you move back to the list, the reminder doesn’t appear (it is moved onto your Completed list).

• To see your completed reminders, tap Show Completed, located at the bottom of the screen. All the reminders on the list appear. Those whose radio buttons are filled with the list’s color are complete. Tap Hide Completed, also located at the bottom of the screen, to show only active reminders again.

• To see your reminders organized by date instead of by list, move to the Lists screen and tap the Scheduled list (which is marked with the alarm clock icon). The Scheduled list shows your reminders based on the time and date with which they are associated. Swipe down on the word “Scheduled” to return to the List screen.

• To change or delete a reminder, tap it. Edit its text if needed. Tap the Information button to change its other details. Tap Done when you’ve made all the changes you want to make.

• To search for reminders, move to the list of reminder lists, swipe down to open the Search bar, and type your search term in the Search bar. As you type, reminders that match your search term are shown. Tap a reminder to view it.

• To delete a reminder, swipe across it to the left and tap Delete.

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Working with the Clock

Using the Clock app, you can configure alarms, use a stopwatch, and count time down with the timer.


Telling Time

Your iPhone is also handy for knowing what time it is. The time is displayed at the top of many screens (although it is hidden when an app uses the full screen or when an app’s controls are hidden). It also appears on the Lock screen. To get the time quickly while your iPhone is locked, just press the Home or Sleep/Wake button. The Lock screen appears and displays the time and date.


Setting and Using Alarms

Your iPhone is a handy alarm clock on which you can set and manage multiple alarms.

Image On the Home screen, tap Clock.

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Image Tap Alarm. You see the currently set alarms, listed by their times, with the earlier alarms toward the top of the screen. Next to each alarm, you see its status switch. When the switch is off (white), the alarm is disabled. When it is on (green), the alarm is active.

Image To add an alarm, tap the Add button (+).

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Image Swipe on the hour, minute, and AM/PM bars to set the time you want the alarm to activate.

Image To configure the alarm to repeat, tap Repeat; to set a one-time alarm, skip to step 9.

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Image Tap the day of the week on which you want the alarm to repeat. It is marked with a check mark.

Image Repeat step 6 as many times as you need; however, the most frequently an alarm can repeat is once per day. Of course, you can create multiple alarms for the same day.

Image Tap Back.

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Image To name the alarm, tap Label. The label is what appears on the screen when the alarm activates, so you might want to give it a meaningful title. (To leave the default label, which is “Alarm,” skip to step 13.)

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How iPhone Alarms Are Like Those on Bedside Clocks

You can’t set an alarm for a specific date; they are set only by day of the week, just like a bedside alarm clock. To set an alarm for a specific date, configure an event using the Calendar app and associate an alarm with that event. Or, you can set a reminder as another way to be notified at a specific time and date.


Image To remove the current label, tap the Clear button (x).

Image Type a label for the alarm.

Image Tap Back.

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Image To choose the alarm sound, tap Sound.

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Silent Alarm

If you select the None sound, you won’t hear anything when the alarm goes off, but a visual alarm displays.


Image Browse the list of available sounds.

Image Tap the sound you want to use for the alarm. You hear the sound, and it is marked with a check mark.

Image After you select the sound you want to use, tap Back.

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Image To disable the Snooze function, set the Snooze switch to off (white). When the alarm sounds and you dismiss it, it won’t appear again. With Snooze set to on (green), you can tap Snooze to dismiss the alarm, and it returns at 10-minute increments until you dismiss it.

Image Tap Save. You return to the Alarm screen, which now shows the new alarm you set. When the appointed time arrives, the alarm sounds and displays on the screen (or just displays on the screen if it is a silent alarm).

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World Clock

On the World Clock tab, you can configure clocks to display the times in different time zones around the world. Tap the Add button (+) and use the Search tool to find and tap a city in the time zone in which you are interested. A clock for that city is added to the World Clock screen and you see the current time there. You can add multiple clocks to see the time in many times zones at once.


Managing Alarms

As you work with alarms, keep the following in mind:

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• When at least one alarm is active, you see the Alarm Clock icon in the upper-right corner of the screen next to the Battery icon.

• You can enable or disable alarms by tapping their switches. Alarms showing green in their switches are enabled and sound when the time comes. Those with white are disabled and are ignored until you enable them.

• To change an alarm, tap Edit, and then tap the alarm you want to change. You can change it using the same tools as when you create a new alarm. Tap Save when you’re done making changes.

• To delete an alarm, tap Edit and then tap the Lock button (-) for the alarm you want to delete. Then tap Delete. Tap Done when you are done deleting alarms.

• When an alarm triggers, you see an alert and hear the sound associated with it. If the alarm is snooze-enabled, tap Snooze to dismiss it; it returns in 10 minutes. To dismiss the alarm completely, tap OK. You can also dismiss an alarm by pressing the Sleep/Wake button.


Not Dismissed So Easily

When you dismiss an alarm, it isn’t deleted, but its status is set to off (unless it is set to repeat, in which case, it remains active and goes off at the next appointed time). To reenable the alarm, move to the Alarm screen and tap its switch. It turns on, and the alarm activates at the next appropriate time.


Using the Stopwatch

You can use the Stopwatch tab to record times for various things, such as walking laps.

Image On the Home screen, tap Clock.

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Image Tap Stopwatch.

Image Tap the Start button to start the count.

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Image Tap Lap to set lap times. As you set lap times, they are recorded on a list on the app’s screen along with the lap number.

Image Tap Stop to stop the stopwatch.

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Image To start over, tap Reset.

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Using the Timer

The Timer is a handy way to count down from a starting time and see and hear an alarm when that time expires. Here’s how to use it:

Image On the Home screen, tap Clock.

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Image Tap Timer.

Image Use the hour and minute wheels to set the amount of time you want for the countdown.

Image Tap When Timer Ends.

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Image Tap the sound you want to play when the timer expires.

Image Tap Set.

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Image Tap Start. The timer begins counting down.

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Image To pause the timer, tap Pause (tap Resume to restart it).

Image To cancel the timer before it finishes, tap Cancel. Otherwise, when the time you selected passes, you hear the end sound you selected in step 5 and see an onscreen message informing you that the time has expired.

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