You are writing an email to a work colleague and listening to a podcast on your iPhone when your home phone rings.

You want to pause the podcast quickly. If you’re using headphones with a pause button then no problem, you simply hit the ‘pause’ button or even pull the jack out, causing to automatically stop.

Handily, there’s another quick way to pause the track. Just double-click the Home button, and a window pops up with iPod controls, allowing you to pause/play, as well as skip tracks and adjust the iPod volume:

You can also tap the iPod button in the window to go straight to the iPod.

By default, this trick only works if an iPod track is playing. However, you can change the behaviour of the Home button double-click action by going to Settings > General> Home Button:

Choosing Home means that double-clicking has the same effect as single-clicking: it merely takes you to your Home screen.

Phone Favorites – the default setting – brings up your favourite contacts for quick dialing, however, if you choose iPod then double-clicking takes you straight to the iPod app, regardless of whether a track is playing.

You can also use the iPod Controls setting to turn off the feature that displays iPod controls when a track is playing.

 Apple has created a brand-new, nifty little feature that allows users to keep up to date with their phones battery life.

New for the iPhone 3Gs, owners can now display a percentage meter next to where the traditional battery life indicator is situated.

 To enable it, head to Settings>General>Usage and flip the “Battery Percentage” switch on.

 You should now be able to view the percentage of available battery left on your iPhone right next to the original battery icon.

 The feature is currently only available on the 3GS, however with the right software, owners with jail broken, or older dated phones will also be able to use the application.

Give it a shot and rate it for yourself, if you end up hating it, or think it drains too much battery using it, you can always turn the feature off.

One of the most enjoyable things about the iPhone is how browsing the internet is such a pleasant experience. When you log onto a page, you’ll probably be surprised by how easy it is to read and scroll through, especially in landscape mode. Even when there is something you’d like to see more closely, you can easily zoom in using the touch screen.

To zoom in on a particular portion of a website, you only need to use the same pinching zoom controls you use when navigating photos or zooming on Google Maps. Or if you’re not familiar with the pinching controls, Safari itself has a menu with several zoom controls for you to choose from.

Safari will indicate the boundaries around boxes of text or images, so if you double-tap the screen on an area of text or image, the browser will automatically zoom in so that particular area fills the screen from left to right with the font size increasing accordingly. You can then cycle up or down and use the same flick controls to browse your music or contacts. To zoom out, simply double-tap the screen again.

One thing to keep in mind when using the Safari double-tap zoom control is to avoid tapping on links – if you do, you’ll inadvertently open a new page and it can be quite frustrating to keep pressing back every time you attempt to zoom in on a block of text or an image.

Like a full-sized browser, you can open multiple windows at the same time. Occasionally this will occur when a link opens in a new window, otherwise you can open one yourself by pressing the button and the right-hand corner of the screen. Once you press this button, the page you already have open will shrink and you can choose whether to open a new page or navigate the pages that are already open by sliding your finger across the screen left or right and then tapping the page you wish to view.

To close your open Safari windows, you can press the red X in the top left hand corner of each page. If you’re down to the final two pages and you close one, the finally page will automatically be selected for you to browse in full-screen mode.

Quitting an app completely is a simple task and can help you speed up the performance of your iPhone, especially if you accidentally open an app or wish to close one you do not expect to use for some time.

To close an app, simple press and hold the Home button for about five seconds. Keep holding until you see the application closes. This will ensure the application is completely closed and will free up the iPhone’s memory.

Thankfully, there are a few shortcuts to use when in Safari that you may not know about. Here are three simple tricks to make iPhone internet browsing a bit less bothersome:

Page Down: If you’re not using a zoomed in display, double-tap towards the bottom of the touch screen. The page will re-centre around your tap. Just avoid tapping a link otherwise your shortcut will do more harm than good.
Back to Top: Double-tap the very top of the screen will bring you back to the top of the screen.
Zoom in on a picture: To zoom in on a single picture, you simply double-tap on the image itself. However, if the picture is linked to a URL this will be a bit tricky. Double-tap again to retain to the normal display.

1. Double tap to insert a full stop and space: When writing an SMS, email or note, most literate people will end their sentences with a full stop. Normally, you’d type the full stop b y tapping the “.?123” key and then touch the “.” Button. The iPhone simplifies this frequent keystroke. When you complete a sentence, you simply double tap the SPACE button and the iPhone will automatically complete a full stop and a space for you. If it doesn’t work, you may need to enable “.” Shortcut in keyboard setting.
   
2. Type punctuation with fewer taps: To type punctuation with the touch keyboard you need to tap the “.?123” key and switch to punctuation key panel. Then you touch the desired punctuation and tap the “ABC” key to switch back to the QWERTY keyboard. There is actually a way to minimise tapping the iPhone keyboard. When you need to type a punctuation mark, instead of tapping and releasing the “.?123” key, hold it. You’ll be brought to choose punctuation. Without releasing your finger, slide it across to choose a punctuation mark (for example, a question mark). Now release your finger to type the punctuation. You’ll find that the keyboard has switched back to a QWERTY keyboard.
   
3. Type Currency $$: Holding the $ sign of the keyboard brings up a selection of currency including Euro, Japanese Yen, British Pounds and more.
   
4. Zooming in on a message: When you are typing a message, tap and hold any text in the message. The iPhone will bring up a magnifying lens to zoom into the text of your message.
   
5. Domain Shortcut (iPhone 2.0 and later): Those with an iPhone 3G or who have upgraded their iPhone to 2.0 firmware will notice that there are a few improvements with the keyboard. When using Safari and typing a URL, hold “.com” button and the iPhone will pop-up a selection of “.org”, “.net” and “.edu” domain for you to tap. The same also works in Email application. Tap the full stop and hold it. You’ll see a selection of “.net”, “.edu”, “.org” and “.com”.
   
6. Faster navigation with the top bar: Apart from displaying network signal strength, time and battery life, the top bar of the iPhone actually has other uses. In Safari, when browsing lengthy webpages, you may find a quicker way to scroll to the top by tapping on the top bar. A simple tap will have the iPhone transport you back to the very top of the webpage. This trick also works for applications such as email, Notes and Contact in iPhone firmware 2.0 and iPhone 3G.
   
7. URLs in Safari: To reveal the URL of a hyperlink in Safari, you can move your cursor onto the hyperlink and the URL is shown in the status bar. This works on the iPhone version of Safari as well. Simply press and hold the hyperlink and the URL will pop up.