You can browse the web to your heart’s content via Wi-Fi or with your iPhone’s 3G connection. Like it’s larger cousin the iPad, your iPhone has what many feel is the most capable mobile browsing experience available today. Web pages look very much like web pages on your computer. With the iPhone’s ability to zoom in, you don’t even have to worry about the smaller screen size inhibiting your web browsing experience. In short, web browsing is a much more personal experience on the iPhone.
Choose to browse in portrait or landscape mode, whichever you prefer. Quickly zoom into a video by double-tapping it or pinching open on it, which is natural to you because those are the motions to zoom in text and graphics.
Why Do Some Videos and Sites Not Appear? (Flash Player Required)
Some web sites are designed with Adobe Flash Player, and at the time of this writing, the iPhone does not support Adobe Flash. Apple has made a decision to not support the Flash Player. If you tap a video and the video does not play, or you see something like "Flash Plugin Required," "Download the Latest Flash Plugin to view this video," or "Adobe Flash Required to view this site," you will not be able to view the video or web page.
The only way to see these Flash videos is to view them from a computer that does support Adobe Flash. Remember, you can send the web address to yourself in an e-mail message (see our section on e-mailing links to web pages for instructions).
More and more sites are now starting to use HTML5 video instead of Flash, including YouTube, Vimeo, TED, the New York: Times, and Time magazine, which will play on your iPhone.
An Internet Connection Is Required
You do need a live Internet connection on your iPhone, either Wi-Fi or 3G, to browse the web. Check out the topic 5, "Wi-Fi and 3G Connectivity" to learn more.
Launching the Web Browser
You should find the Safari (web browser) icon on your Home screen. Usually, the Safari icon is in the Bottom Dock.
Touch the Safari icon, anc you will be taken to the browser’s home page. Most likely, this will be Apple’s iPhone page.
Just turn your iPhone on its side to see the same page in wider landscape mode. As you find web sites you like, you can set bookmarks to easily jump to these sites. We will show you how to do that later in this topic.
Layout of Safari Web Browser Screen
Figure 17-1 shows how a web page looks in Safari and the different actions you can take in the browser.
Figure 17-1. Safari web browser page layout.
As you look at your screen, notice that the Address Bar is in the upper left side of the screen. This displays the current web address. To the right is the Search window. By default, this is set to Google search, but you can change that if you want.
At the bottom of the screen are five icons: Back, Forward, Add Bookmark, Bookmarks, and Pages view.
Typing a Web Address
The first thing you’ll want to learn is how to get to your favorite web pages. Just like on your computer, you type in the web address (URL) into the browser.
1. To start, tap the Address Bar at the top of the browser as shown in Figure 17-2. You’ll then see the keyboard appear and the window for the address bar expand.
2. If there is already an address in the window and you want to erase it,& press the at the right end of the bar.
3. Start typing your web address (you don’t need the www.).
4. When you start typing, you may see suggestions appear below, just tap any of those to go to that page. The suggestions are very complete because they are pulled from your browsing history, bookmarks, the web address (URL), and web page titles.
5. Remember the .com key at the bottom of the page. If you press and hold it, you will see .edu, .org, and other common domain types.
6. When you are finished typing, tap the Go key to go to that page.
TIP: Don’t type the www. because it’s not necessary. Remember to use the colon, forward slash, underscore, dot, and .com keys at the bottom to save time.
Figure 17-2. Typing a web address.
TIP: Press and hold the .com key to see all the options: .org, .edu, .net, .de, and so on.
Moving Backward or Forward Through Open Web Pages
Now that you know how to enter web addresses, you’ll probably be jumping to various web sites. The Forward and Back arrows make it very easy to go to recently visited pages in either direction, as Figure 17-3 shows. If the Back arrow is grayed out, the "Using the Open Pages Button" section can help.
Let’s say you were looking at the news on the New York Times web site, and you jumped to ESPN to check sports scores. To go back to the New York Times page, just tap the Back arrow. To return to the ESPN site again, touch the Forward arrow.
Figure 17-3. Returning to a previously viewed web page
Using the Open Pages Button
Sometimes, when you click a link, the web page you were viewing moves to the background and a new window pops up with new content (another web page, a video, etc.). You will see the page you were on move to the background and a new page being opened. In such cases, the Back arrow in the new browser window will not work.
Instead, you have to tap the Open Pages icon
in the lower right corner to see a list of open web pages and then tap the one you want. In the example shown in Figure 17-4, we touched a link that opened a new browser window. The only way to get back to the old one was to tap the Open Pages icon and select the desired page.
Figure 17-4. Jumping between open web pages when the Back button doesn’t work.
Zooming In and Out in Web Pages
Zooming in and out of web pages is very easy on the iPhone. There are two primary ways of zooming—double-tapping and pinching.
Double-tapping
If you tap twice on a column of a web page, the page will zoom in on that particular column. This lets you home in on exactly the right place on the web page, which is very helpful for pages that aren’t formatted for a mobile screen.
To zoom out, just double-tap once more. See graphically how this looks in the "Quick Start Guide" earlier in this topic.
Pinching
This technique lets you zoom in on a particular section of a page. It takes a little bit of practice but will soon become second nature. Take a look in the "Quick Start Guide" to see graphically how it looks.
Place your thumb and forefinger close together at the section of the web page you wish to zoom into. Slowly pinch out, separating your fingers. You will see the web page zoom in. It takes a couple of seconds for the web page to focus, but it will zoom in and be very clear in a short while.
To zoom out to where you were before, just start with your fingers apart and move them slowly together; the page will zoom out to its original size.
Activating Links from Web Pages
When you’re surfing the Web, often you’ll come across a link that will take you to another web site. Because Safari is a full-function browser, you simply touch the link and you will jump to a new page.
