My iPhone for Seniors, Second Edition (2016)

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Listening to Podcasts

The first step in listening to a podcast is to find the episode you want to listen to. You can see episodes individually, such as on a list of results from a search, or more commonly, when you view a podcast to which you are subscribed.

As you learned in the previous task, you can do this by tapping the podcast on the My Podcasts screen to open it.

When you open a podcast, you see that podcast’s screen. At the top is the general information about the podcast. Below that is the list of episodes for the podcast. What you see on this screen depends on the settings for the podcast, such as how long you keep episodes. Episodes are grouped in various ways, again depending on your settings (see “Setting Your Podcast Preferences” earlier in this chapter for information on settings). You can browse the list of episodes.

Tap the episode to which you want to listen. If it is not currently downloaded, it downloads and starts to play as soon as enough of it has been downloaded that it can play without stopping. If it is already stored on your phone, it starts playing immediately. At the bottom of the screen, you see the Miniplayer. As the episode plays, you can view its information or pause it by tapping the Pause button.

When you tap on the ellipsis next to an episode, you see a menu providing a number of commands you can apply to that episode, such as Play Next, Mark as Played, and so on.

When you tap the Miniplayer, you move to the Now Playing screen. On the Now Playing screen, you have the following controls:

• Tap the downward-facing arrow to move back to the podcast’s screen and display the Miniplayer instead.

• Tap the Up Next button to see a list of episodes for the podcast you are playing or if you are viewing the Unplayed list, you see the list of unplayed episodes in the order they will play (you can tap an episode from the list to play it). You can add episodes to the end of this list by using the Add to Up Next command or you can move an episode to the top of the list by using the Play Next command. Tap Done to close the Up Next list.

• Tap the Pause/Play button to pause a playing podcast or to play a paused one.

• Tap the Repeat Last 15 Seconds button to repeat the last 15 seconds of the episode.

Managing Podcasts and Episodes of Podcasts

Here are some pointers you can use to manage your podcasts:

• To manage a podcast and its episodes, move to its screen and tap Settings (the gear button) to move to the Settings screen for the podcast.

• The Settings tools enhance or override the general podcast preferences you set in the Settings app. Use the Play option to set the order in which the episodes play. Tap the Sort Order option to set the order in which they appear on the podcast’s screen. Set the Subscribed switch to off (white) to stop downloading episodes; set it to on (green) to resume downloads. Use the Notifications switch to stop or resume notifications for the podcast (if you’ve disabled all notifications for the Podcasts app, this switch is disabled). Use the controls in the ON THIS IPHONE section to override the global settings; for example, you can use the Refresh Every option to change how the podcast is refreshed. When you are done configuring the settings, tap Done.

• To manage a podcast’s episodes, move to its screen and tap Edit (shown in an earlier figure). Selection circles appear next to each episode. Tap the episodes you want to manage. Tap Mark, and then tap Mark as Played or Mark as Unplayed to change the selected episodes’ status; when you mark an episode as Played, it is immediately removed from the list if the app is configured to delete played episodes. To save episodes so they won’t be deleted automatically, tap Save Episodes. To unsave episodes, tap Remove from Saved. Tap Delete to delete the selected episodes. Tap Done to exit the Edit mode.

• To delete individual episodes of a podcast, swipe to the left on the episode you want to delete and tap Delete.

• When a podcast is marked with an exclamation point badge, it has a problem. Tap the podcast to see an explanation of the problem at the top of the screen. Most commonly, it is that the app has stopped downloading the podcast because you haven’t listened to any episodes in a while. Tap the message to refresh the podcast.

• You can also refresh all your podcasts by swiping down from the top of the My Podcasts screen, or refresh a specific podcast by swiping down from the top of its screen.

Finding Your Way with Maps

The Maps app enables you to find locations and view them on the map. However, the real power of the Maps app is that you can then get detailed, turn-by-turn, spoken directions to those places. You can use these directions to drive, walk, or even take public transportation to the places you find.

Generating directions with the Maps app is easy and quick to do as the following steps demonstrate:

On the Home screen, tap Maps.

Tap in the Search bar, and type in the location you want to find. You can type in an address, a place name (such as Lucas Oil Stadium), or even a description of what you are looking for (e.g., Starbucks near me). As you type, the app presents a list of locations that meet your search.

Tap the location you want to see on the map. The map appears and the location, or locations (if you do a more general search), for which you searched are marked with a pushpin.

If there is more than one location shown in the map, tap the pushpin for the location in which you are interested; if only one location was found, it is selected automatically and you don’t need to tap it. You see a summary of the location you selected, including an estimated time to go there from your current location (the car icon indicates the time is estimated based on regular vehicle travel).

If you want directions from your current location to the selected location, tap the blue time estimate part of the summary pop-up and skip to step 13.

To generate directions starting from someplace other than your current location, tap the right-facing arrow. On the location’s info screen, you see a variety of information about it, such as phone number, website, physical address, and so on (the information provided varies).

Browse up and down the screen to view information about the location. Links enable you to perform other actions related to it, such as tapping the phone icon to place a call to the number shown.

Tap Directions.

Tap in the top box and tap the clear button to erase the current start location, which is your current location by default.

Type the location for the starting point of your route. The app searches for locations based on what you type; this works just like when you started this process.

Tap the location where you want the route to start.

Tap Route. When the app determines the route you selected, you see it in dark blue on the map; alternate routes are shown in other shades (you can tap an alternate route to use it instead).

Tap Drive to get driving directions, Walk to get walking directions, or Transit to see routes available by public transportation.

Tap Start to have the app start navigating for you. The app shows you the part of the route you are on and announces when you need to do something else, such as when and where you need to turn. It gives you a “heads-up” warning when a change is coming up, such as a notice you will be exiting a highway 2 miles before the exit. The app guides you until you reach the destination. If you get off course, it recalculates the route for you automatically. This continues until you arrive at your destination.

As you navigate, you can tap the screen to show its controls.

Tap End to end the navigation before you reach the destination; otherwise, navigation stops automatically when you reach the end of the journey.