Apple has made it pretty straightforward to make a conference call with your iPhone, but you may not know that you can also easily drop a party individually without ending the call entirely or put other calls on hold to have a sidebar conversation. Tap the arrow button that appears to the right of the names when you’re on a conference call and you’ll see a list of all of the parties in the call.
From here you can tap the red hangup button to drop an individual party and return to your original call or tap on the green “Private” button to place the other parties on hold and speak to only one person; when you’re in a private conversation the “Merge Calls” button will reappear to bring everybody back together.
These features are particularly handy when you consider that the iPhone isn’t limited to just three-way calls; barring any limitations your carrier may impose, the iPhone actually lets you have up to five other parties in a conference call.
Be careful, however, as most carriers will charge you any applicable airtime and long distance for each party in a conference call.
