Our iPhones and iPads are capable of amazing things, but most of us only use a small percentage of their abilities. In this weekly column I share tips and tricks for beginners, or anyone who wants to harness the full power of their iDevice. This week, I'm going to give tips for the Music app on your iPhone.
1. Add an Item to Your Wish List
If you come across an item you want while you're browsing the iTunes Store but don't want to purchase it yet, you can save it to a wish list. To add an item, tap the share icon (a square with an arrow pointing up) in the bar along the top of your screen, then tap Add to Wish List. When you want to visit your wish list later, tap the far-right icon (three horizontal lines) in the top bar and then Wish List.
2. Repeat an Album
If there's an album you love and wouldn't mind listening to again and again while you're going through your day, you can set it to repeat. In the Music app, tap the More tab on the bottom-right corner, then tap the Albums option at the top. Scroll through until you find the album you want to listen to, open it, and you'll see a track list. Click a song, then tap Repeat in the bottom-left corner, then Repeat Album.
3. Control Playback
While listening to music or a voice recording, you can control the app's playback in Control Center (accessed by swiping up from any screen). To return to the app that's responsible for playback, tap the song's title while in Control Center.
4. Scrubbing
Do you ever find yourself listening to a song and just wanting to get to the good part? You can tap, hold, and drag the red line along the track for fast-forward or rewind (called scrubbing.) You'll see the words Hi-Speed Scrubbing as you do this. If you'd like to slow down the process to refine your search, slide your finger up a bit on the screen while your dragging the red line and it will change to Half-Speed Scrubbing. Slide your finger a little higher and you'll see Quarter-Speed Scrubbing, even higher you'll find Fine Scrubbing which moves the red line at much finer control.
5. Genre Shuffling
You can always tap Shuffle at the top of your screen while listening to the Music app to move through all your songs randomly. But if you want to only listen to a certain Genre, say Holiday music, you can shuffle without creating a specific playlist for the music. First, swipe downward on your screen to the search field and type the Genre name you want to listen to. When it appears in the search results, you can tap on it to view all the tracks assigned to that genre, grouped by album. Tap on one of the tracks and it will automatically begin a shuffled playback of that genre.
