Getting Oriented

Before you start

Have your iPhone unlocked and in front of you.

The metaphor to open with

The Home Screen is the job site. Every app icon is a tool sitting on the truck bed — you don’t need to know how the tool was built, just where it sits and what it’s for. Settings is the office trailer: it’s the one place you go to change how anything on the site works.

Walk-through

1. The Home Screen. Every icon is just a shortcut to one tool. Icons don’t move around on their own — if something looks different, it got bumped, not broken.
2. Opening an app. Tap once. No double-tap, no press-and-hold needed just to open something.
3. Going back to the Home Screen. Swipe up from the very bottom edge of the screen. The single most useful gesture on the whole device — when in doubt, swipe up from the bottom.
4. Closing an app (rarely needed, but good to know). Swipe up from the bottom and pause halfway to see all your open apps as cards. Swipe a card up and off the top to close it. Apps almost never need to be closed — leaving them open costs nothing.
5. Control Center — the quick-access panel. Swipe down from the top-right corner. Brightness, volume, Wi-Fi, and flashlight live here.
6. Notifications. Swipe down from the top-middle/left. The day’s mail pile — texts, missed calls, app alerts — all stacked in one place. Tap one to jump straight to it.
7. Settings — the office trailer. Find the gray gear icon and open it. Your name sits at the very top — that’s Apple ID, covered next session. Everything below it is organized by app or feature.

Try it together

• Open the Settings app on your own.
• Find and toggle Wi-Fi off, then back on, from Control Center.
• Open two different apps, then get back to the Home Screen each time by swiping up.

Before next time

• Practice swiping up from the bottom to get home — 5–10 times over the next few days until it’s automatic.
• Open Control Center once a day just to get comfortable finding it.