Having a bunch of sliders and buttons on the screen doesn’t inconvenience
you much when you’re listening to music. The action is in your ears, not on
the screen.
But when you’re playing video, anything else on the screen is distracting, so
Apple hides the video playback controls. Tap the screen once to make them
appear, and again to make them disappear.
Here’s what they do:
Done. Tap this blue button, in the top-left corner, to stop playback and
return to the master list of videos.
Scroll slider. This progress indicator (top of the screen) is exactly like
the one you see when you’re playing music. You see the elapsed time,
remaining time, and a little white round handle that you can drag to
jump forward or back in the video.
Zoom/Unzoom. In the top-right corner, a little [ or ] button
appears. Tap it to adjust the zoom level of the video, as described on the
facing page.
Play/Pause (÷/¿). These buttons (and the earbud clicker) do the same
thing to video as they do to music: alternate between playing and
pausing.
Previous, Next («, »). Hold down your finger to rewind or fast-forward
the video. The longer you hold, the faster the zipping. (When you
fast-forward, you even get to hear the sped-up audio, at least for the first
few seconds.)
If you’re watching a movie from the iTunes Music Store, you may be
surprised to discover that it comes with predefi ned chapter markers, just
like a DVD. Internally, it’s divided up into scenes. You can tap the « or
» button to skip to the previous or next chapter marker—a great way
to navigate a long movie quickly.
if you’re wearing the earbuds, you can pinch the clicker twice to skip to the next
chapter.
Volume. You can drag the round, white handle of this scroll bar (bottom
of the screen) to adjust the volume—or you can use the volume keys on
the left side of the phone.
When you reach the end of a video, the iPhone asks if you want to keep it or
delete it. It’s a thoughtful gesture, considering that videos occupy an enormous
chunk of the iPhone’s memory. (Deleting it from the iPhone doesn’t
delete it from your computer.)
